First they came for the kettles, the washing machines and the fridges and now for the petrol lawnmowers, grass trimmers, chainsaws and others.

European Parliament enacts emission limits for lawnmowers which is to say that someone in the civil service of the European Union, either in the Council or the Commission, has come up with this and the parliament was permitted to rubber stamp it.

The EU-Parliament has now enacted legislation about the emission limits of lawnmowers, grass trimmers, and other petrol-driven machinery of this kind.

From now on lawnmowers shall no longer be able to pollute the European air unchecked. The European Parliament in Strasbourg has decided about maximum emission levels for all machines with internal combustion engines that are not intended for road use.

It is not only lawnmowers and other garden and forestry tools with an internal combustion engine that are thus affected. Also Diesel locomotives, bulldozers, harvesting machines for agriculture and inland navigation vessels, that is to say freight and passenger ships that use rivers and canals, as well as those on lakes, fall under those new regulations, which will come into force either 2018 or 2019.

According to a report of the EU-Parliament engines of this kind are responsible for at least 15% of all nitric oxide emissions and 5% of all nano particle emissions in the European Union.

Those emissions have health risks associated with them. They can attack mucus membranes, cause breathing problems and irritation of the eyes, and also can affect the cardiovascular system.

The new rules also intend that all engines must be fitted with a devise that can watch over the emissions, so to speak, while the machines are being used. Thus retrofitting may become compulsory but no decision has been reached in that respect as yet and the EU-Commission is to look into that issue further it has been said.

While, to some extent, curbing emissions from all kinds of internal combustion engines is a good idea, and when it comes to machines such as chainsaws, grass trimmers, hedge cutters, when used professionally, the user tends to breathe in an awful lot of the exhaust fumes, and that cannot be good for health, the cynic in me, however, wonders as to whether this is just another way to, also, do something for the economy, so to speak, in that either having to buy new machines or getting them retrofitted with devices, will mean that people have to spend money again.